Brighton sea swim date set for 'wrongfully detained' journalist Evan Gershkovich

A swim for imprisoned journalist Evan Gershkovich will be held outside Sea Lanes on Brighton Beach on Saturday, March 23.

The event is part of a campaign led by the Wall Street Journal to help raise awareness of Gershkovich's imprisonment in Russia and keep it in the news.

The swim is a nod to Evan’s affinity for Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach and also Brighton Beach on England’s south coast. His WSJ colleagues and other volunteers around the world will be taking a dip in their nearest Brighton-named beach.

The day will kick off in New Zealand's Brighton Beach before Sydney, Australia, then South Africa, then England. The seaside action then moves across the Atlantic to Brooklyn, before a frigid dip in Brighton Beach, Ontario. The warmer waters of Brighton Beach Jamaica await, before it wraps up at California's New Brighton Beach.

On March 29, 2023, Gershkovich was detained by Russian security forces in Yekaterinburg, an industrial city about a thousand miles east of Moscow, reported Charlotte Alter for Time.com.

Gershkovich has been a political prisoner in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison for nearly a year, the first American journalist to be accused of espionage in Russia since the Cold War. Time.com added that Gershkovich is not a spy and has never worked for the U.S. government. The White House calls the charges against him “ridiculous” and classifies Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained.”

In a rare interview last month with American reporter Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested he was open to releasing Gershkovich in a prisoner swap and said that Russia is in “ongoing dialogue” with the U.S. “I do not rule out that the person you are referring to, Mr. Gershkovich, may return to his motherland,” Putin said.

The Journal has launched a task force and a media campaign called #IStandWithEvan.